Financial ties between researchers and companies that make the drugs they are studying are independently associated with positive trial results, suggesting bias in the evidence base, concludes a study published by The BMJ today.
Relationships with industry are common among investigators of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) – raising concerns about the effect that financial ties may have on the evidence base. But studies investigating these relationships have been conflicting.
So a team of US based researchers set out to investigate the association between financial ties of principal investigators and study outcomes in a random sample of 195 drug trials published in 2013.